#pr crisis

[discluded]

Hi! I really like your blog! Can I ask what is your opinion in regards to the recent BOC and Chinese statement issue? Please feel free to ignore if not appropriate ❤️

Hi Anon,

Thanks for asking politely. I'll answer because I can present it as a business case study which allows me to talk about BOC's failures somewhat objectively. It's clear at this point it doesn't matter how much feedback BOC gets from fans, so at least hopefully some of y'all can learn some things. *jazz hands* Didacticism.

Warning to everyone else this does not mean I am opening my inbox to complaints about how BOC sucks or how certain fans are entitled 🤪 I will block you. Open your own blog.

Be On Cloud's Communications Crisis – Business Case Study

So first, we need to define a couple of things: what is the difference between communications, marketing, and PR. Other folks with experience, please feel to add your opinion too, but how I see the difference is:

Communications is usually the the written or spoken content by which events/occurrences of a company are shared with both those internal and external to the company.

Marketing focuses both on the process by which that information is disseminated outwardly, and also usually aims at a high level to sell you an idea or product. Often the goal of a marketing campaign is explicitly measurable, whether it's in sales, conversions, email opens, etc.

Public relations (PR) is the process by which a company aims to maintain a positive public image to those outside the company

As you can see, those each have quite a bit of overlap with each other while also being distinct. Depending on the size of the company, each of those teams can be the same or differentiated. The fourth piece I want to add on to this is strategy. All three of the above are the actual day-to-day implementation of work, while strategy is the overarching goal posts by which they operate. Executives (like Mile being a CEO) influence strategy. When things go wrong, new strategy needs to be developed quickly and implemented.

(Aside: Mile has mentioned that he is an executive at BOC, but I want to clarify "executive" positions may also include being on the executive board/board of directors, who advise on strategy to the CEO or possibly of another department, and wouldn't have influence over marketing/comms. He isn't doing that work at his own businesses so I can't imagine he'd run comms for another one.)

The Earlier Crisis: Global Auditions 🤦🏻‍♀️

It might help to read these as well: The 6 Best PR Crisis Management & Communication Cases and PR Crisis Communication & Management Planning

Here are important key takeaways from the planning link:

Sound familiar? :')

I'll keep this brief, allow me to highlight a practical differentiation of the four of the above succinctly and is something the fandom collectively can agree on was a massive comms flop and PR nightmare.

Strategy: We want to recruit new talent for an upcoming series as well as generate fan hype for this series/season

Marketing: We will announce global auditions for this series/season

Communications: Unfortunately forgot to have marketing, which handle the social media posts, mention that "global" means three cities in Asia, as well as only looking for men between 16-22 despite most fans -- who saw the post -- being female.

PR: Not only makes the company's strategy look inadequate by the details of the audition only following the SM marketing announcement rather than sharing those details first/simultaneously to manage fans' expectations but also makes BOC look sexist. They haven't recovered. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I started with this one because where it went wrong was way more clean to see the breakdown.

The Case: What happened on Sept 12

BOC somehow managed to generate a PR crisis out of something that originally had the fans rallying around them, which is...impressive(ly bad).

I'm not going to document the triggering event too much but at approximately 10pm on Sept 12, stalkers tried to break into Be On Cloud's offices. I maintain my stance that it's not the company's fault or responsibility this happened, especially since these people obviously didn't succeed into getting into the building.

BOC issued a statement in Thai condemning these actions and immediately issued a following statement in Chinese on Twitter, due to the stalkers being Chinese-speakers. Obviously, a large number of KPTS fans are Chinese-speakers, but some Chinese fans pointed out that there was no immediately second translation/third set of tweet of the statement issued in English on Twitter which a large portion of the KPTS fanbase also used, especially on Twitter.

Chinese fans immediately disclaimed the stalkers as being fans but also felt they were specifically being targeted/attacked for the behavior of the stalkers.

Sept 13: The next morning, BOC issued three statements, in Thai, English, and Chinese this time. Many Chinese fans felt that the explanation in the Chinese statement was both overly brief compared to the English version and comparatively aggressive/unapologetic. BOC stood their ground and did not issue any more statements. Chinese (former?)fans then began to unfollow Apo on Weibo as well as perform a number of visible acts of quitting fandom.

What broke down? (Hint: Everything, for no reason)

I'm not going to give out too much free advice here, but here we go.

Strategy: They clearly don't have a PR crisis strategy despite the fact this isn't the first go-around. It's pretty clear they likely don't even have a PR strategy most of the time and are flying by the seat of their pants. Everything they do in terms of comms is almost reactive rather than proactive.

Marketing: The dissemination of information via socmed isn't terrible; that being said, there appears to be very little discipline over what is being sent through which channels such as if it's vetted at all (ie, the admission of being heated in the Chinese statement on Sept 13) and how well it's vetted (eg, wrongfully tagging accounts of their talent). There's a reason a lot of companies' CEOs have a personal twitter account. It allows a reiteration of statements, especially apologies, to be more personalized. Actually a lot of fans interpret Mile and Apo going online and making statements as doing damage control for BOC. Whether or not that's true, it's certainly unwise to use your talent to do that rather than your CEO who's ego should be able to take it

Communications: I'm not bothering to read the statements in depth. But It's not unreasonable for your audience to have the expectation that what's posted in one language is reasonably equivalent in other languages. Don't treat your audience like they're dumb, can't speak other languages, or don't have access to Google translate.

PR: BOC is creating these PR crises, not managing them. This isn't even the first one they've put themselves through. I think that's incriminating enough how good they are at PR.

Do I have an opinion? Sure.

Can I see where the Chinese fans are coming from? Actually yes. Fans want and deserve to be treated equally.

Do I think they're being unreasonable overreacting? Absolutely. Speaking as a Chinese-speaker too. If your personal reaction to BOC's comms team messing up is more heated than how your feel about the actors you care about being threatened by stalkers ... that's a lot.

That being said, I'm not going to waste my energy judging how individuals handle their lives or emotions. I am, like many fans, deeply concerned about how BOC is mishandling comms because BOC is not going away (for now).

Fans say lots of reactionary things, but the process by which BOC's comms team is failing is so overwhelmingly loud and public that I'm here writing a business case study about it. And that's part of PR too. Fans are always reactive -- this is not limited to KPTS or BOC. There are publicists and managers that manage Beyonce, BTS, Taylor Swift, etc. who all have loud fanbases. It's embarrassing to see a talent agency fuck up so badly it then begins to reflect on the talent. That's not just about fan reactions. BOC really needs to hire a consulting company and a new director of communications.

Should we be worried about the 2023 Film/KPTS Season 2

Surprisingly: probably not. BOC has at least two branches: a management (talent) branch and a production (art) branch. We see they're capable of handling the art.

This discrepancy between the art/artists being actually emotionally effective while the marketing side of the company just being a disaster is very reminiscent of the creators who work on Disney movies and Disney's extremely weird marketing team/s.

I'm sure Mile and Apo will do their utmost to bring us a beautiful piece of work. We likely just have to suffer BOC's continuous comms disasters while they do it.

[jerseydeanne]

Meghan Markle and Just Harry are in PR crisis mode No amount of PR is going to work! Apologize and beg forgiveness! We all know your too dumb to realize what you've done is wrong. 

[ringringhookaringring]

[justmythots8]

Five Rules On How To Deal With A PR Crisis:

1) - Take Responsibility - the outcome of your reputation & image comes down to this first step. Do not try and point fingers. I repeat, do not try and point fingers! Take responsibility for your own actions. Respond to criticism. And keep the conversation positive. Don’t argue with critics. Don’t continue to dig the hole deeper. Remember Roseanne Barr’s PR scandal, involving a racial comment to a former Obama adviser? Yea, how well did that work out for her? She was fired from her hit TV show, effective immediately. At first, ABC was considering canceling the entire show altogether! But, the drama didn’t stop there; Rosanne went on trying to defend herself, claiming she had taken Ambien for sleep the night of that career-altering Tweet, claiming that she was “Not a racist, just an idiot who made a bad joke”. To add insult to injury, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, the makers of Ambien, jumped in on the conversation tweeting this: “While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication”. After Big Pharma joined the narrative, Rosannes mis-step had already gone viral. But after Sanofi got involved, the internet literally went berserk. Something that could have been avoided, had Rosanne kept her mouth shut about her comments. A heart-felt apology was all that she should have offered.

2) - Be Authentic - Now is not the time to try and manipulate your way out of the mess you’ve created. It’s also not wise to state conflicting accounts. Confusion is never received well. People don’t want to feel like they’re being misled, or manipulated. It really is as simple as taking responsibility for your actions, and issuing a genuine apology. Remember that Pepsi commercial, featuring Kendall Jenner fiasco? In the commercial, Pepsi gave the impression that the Black Lives Matter riots could be solved with handing an angry officer a nice, cold Pepsi. That’s so amazing, the poster of Pepsi! Why hadn’t I thought of that sooner? While many thought there was nothing wrong with Pepsi’s message, saying they thought it represented unity during a time of restlessness. Others were not so impressed, understandably so. People were being shot & killed by police, no apparent reason. Because of their skin color, and maybe because of the way they were dressed, or the kind of car they drive. Pepsi eventually admitted that they “Missed the mark”, but not before trying to publicly defend themselves, which didn’t go over too well with critics. In these situations, it’s best to just take accountability, apologize, and move on.

3) - Screw strategies - don’t wait until you’ve got a full-blown crisis on your hands before addressing the incident(s). Don’t take your good ol’ time trying to come up with the perfect strategy. This is instant reputation suicide. Recall the Queen after Diana died? The British public were enraged and offended that their Queen hadn’t issued a statement acknowledging Diana’s death. This left them feeling alone and isolated. Act fast!

4) - Be Genuine - People can see through bullshit. They can tell when they’re being manipulated or deceived. When you are dealing with an already enraged public, the last thing you want to do is add fuel to the fire. Be honest. Be relatable. And most importantly, be genuine. Peoples’ intuitions are quite perceptive these days. If you make a half-hearted apology, or point fingers at others for your mistakes, you are just making yourself look worse, and sabotaging your own reputation. When customers over at Yankee Candle started complaining to the company that their very expensive candles did not have the same intense scent-throw that Yankee Candles are beloved for, Yankee’s CEO at the time publicly came out and said that people didn’t care about the scent of their candles, claiming customers cared more about the design label & the exotic names of their scents. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over too well with Yankee Candle fans. Fun fact: the CEO who made this statement has since been replaced. 3 years later, and Yankee is still suffering the fallout of that CEO’s ignorant statement. Brand trust was compromised.

5) - Ask yourself “Why do I keep having so many PR faux pas”? - In my opinion, it seems like it would take more effort to keep having issues, than it would to just take a beat and disappear from the media, while the dust settles. This included ALL media platforms, like social media. You have enough press to deal with right now. You don’t need any more, whether that be good, bad, or indifferent. Recall the “Varsity Blues” college bribe scandal involving popular social media influencer Olivia Jade & her B list actress mother, Lori Laughlin? They didn’t mess around when that scandal hit headlines. Olivia went silent on social media, as did her mother. They have not been heard from at all. Even though Olivia has millions of subscribers on her YouTube channel, she has not uploaded another video since. This is the epitome of crisis PR management! Because they have been so silent, and have not created waves by giving opinionated interviews, they have virtually disappeared from headlines, and no one is talking about Varsity Blues anymore. Take a page from Olivia Jade, Meghan. At 18, she’s wise beyond her years.

These two need to start listening to the public’s criticism. They have failed miserably to acknowledge the people and their concerns. Social media isn’t working. Petitions aren’t working. Standing outside of the palace yelling “Charlatan Duchess” isn’t working. Would they notice if we sent smoke signals? Probably not. But we would get called “racists” for sending them.

[s-tory-teller]

I'm still laughing because like by sending out a mass email adressing the people accusing bbc one of queerbaiting, they literally admitted to everyone that there are a lot of people complaining about queerbaiting. And now they just notified a bunch of people who had complained about all the things wrong with the series that did not even remotely have to do with queerbaiting, telling them bbc one has a problem with queerbaiting, and I just... this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. If this isn't an expert plan by bbc one to get everyone thinking about johnlock in hype for a fourth episode then this whole situation is a living breathing disaster and everyone on the sherlock and bbc one PR teams should quit their jobs in shame. Like honestly, I am an undergrad PR student and I know that what they just did only made the problem like 20x worse.

[autoclick-digital-marketing]

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[autoclick-digital-marketing]

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